(The Associated Press circulated the following on May 20, 2009.)
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — A University of North Dakota research center is working on a clean energy system that converts used railroad ties into heat and power.
The school’s Energy and Environmental Research Center is teaming with a Manitoba company on the project. Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. of Winnipeg is installing two of the systems at a demonstration site in British Columbia.
EERC officials said railroad ties are difficult to process because they are treated with resins and tar. The project aims to reduces emissions to meet U.S. federal regulations.
The railroad ties are chipped before being fed into the system, said Gerald Groenewold, EERC director.
“We chop them up and we feed them into a system that turns them into, basically an equivalent of natural gas, and at the same time destroys all those very troublesome preservatives that are in them,” Groenewold said. “So we are eliminating the need to bury them and we’re generating electricity with it.”
Officials say about 25 million used railroad ties are destroyed each year in North America.